The Houston Texans began their 2013 Training Camp last Friday, July 26th at their Methodist Training Center home across from Reliant Stadium in Houston with great expectations for the upcoming season.

The team is coming off their second playoff appearance in team history, and they have a number of new acquisitions, with Super Bowl Champion Ed Reed formerly of the Baltimore Ravens with the top free agent player picked up in the off season.

Defensive star Brian Cushing, who tore his Achilles early last season has had a successful rehab and should be ready to get back on the field for opening day of the regular season. First Round Draft pick DeAndre Hopkins is expected to start across from future Hall of Fame receiver Andre Johnson.

Every team in the NFL has high hopes at this time of year since everyone is 0-0, but the pundits all agree that IF Houston can remain healthy through the year, they have a legitimate shot at representing the AFC at next February’s Super Bowl at Giants Stadium.

Johnson was asked his thoughts about having the new offensive additions to the team after last Saturday afternoon’s practice. “You get excited, not only just about rookies they bring in on offense, you get excited about just players they bring in period because you know that they can come out and help your team. I’m just anxious to get out there in the preseason game and see how it all unfolds, but you have to lay the groundwork first. That’s what’s most important right now, so that’s what we are trying to do.”

“A lot of people always talk about leaders and there are a lot of guys that like to talk a lot. I always been a guy that just led by example and I think that when you just do things the right way sometimes guys will just follow. That’s what I try to do. I just try to do things the right way and lead by example. If guys have a question about anything, I let them know if I think they are doing something wrong I’m going to let them know about it and I always tell them if they think I’m doing something wrong to let me know. That’s what it’s all about. That’s the only way your team is going to be great, so I just try to help anybody out whenever I can and they can help me out whenever they can.”

Coach Gary Kubiak was pleased with what he saw of his team after two days of camp.

“Yeah, usually it takes about three days to work into it and they get pretty worn out and sore, and they start to revive a little bit, but I thought it was good. It was very competitive. We’ve added a few different periods to our practice form a competitive standpoint and I like our young guys and the way they’re competing I thought it was a good day.”

“You never know how you’re going to be built. Obviously, if you’ve got good players in place, you’re not going to say, ‘Well, I’m going to let him go because I’m going to keep this many tight ends.’ You’re going to keep the guys that earned the right to be here. We may be built different at back. We could be built different at tight end. I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see. We’ve got some young offensive linemen. I think you always have a template that you kind of worked off of, but yet, we’re not going to run anybody out here who show us that they can win. So we’ll see.”

With camps across the NFL just getting started, there are still a lot of decisions to be made and a lot of chemistry to develop, but from all indications, it should be the best year yet to be a Houston Texans fan!